Do you like trampolines?
One of my friends wanted to celebrate her birthday party at the trampoline gym. No kids allowed. Just us girls. This was my kind of party! Forget the sophisticated dinners! Crack the egg and backflips are more our style.
My friends are mostly mommies in their late 20’s to 30’s who love physical activities. We spend most of our time working out together.
I love trampolines so this was going to be a great party. Before we paid admission a group of them gathered in a cluster, giggling. When I came to see what was so funny they were all pulling out diapers from their purses.
I was confused and looked around to see if someone had brought their toddler or something. It didn’t register that these were adult diapers.
When they saw my face one of them laughed, “Oh, Arwen. This is what happens when you have kids.”
I couldn’t believe it! These were young, athletic women and they were already needing a back-up for urinary incontinence. Thanks to their playful attitudes and preparation we continued to have a blast on the trampolines with no problems.
But then I went home to research urinary incontinence because I’m super fun like that. I found that the cases of incontinence are on the rise among young women and it does have successful prevention and healing methods. So why are more people just living with it?
why are cases of incontinence on the rise even in young women?
Childbirth can be traumatic, but most of the time the muscles are supposed to bounce back with proper care. I bought The Bathroom Key by Kathryn Kassai and Kim Perelli and read it cover to cover within 2 days.
I was floored when I took the evaluation quiz! I found that even though I haven’t had children and work out everyday that I have symptoms of incontinence beginning to form!
Since I’m not shy about health issues, I felt it was my duty to start re-educating people. Now I include pelvic floor awareness in my training programs and talk about it frankly with my clients and in classes.
Here are the 5 ways you could be weakening your pelvic floor
You don’t know how to train the pelvic floor
The muscles act like a strong hammock to keep all your organs supported inside the pelvis. Some people get embarrassed talking about these muscles, but they are too important to ignore.
There are many likely causes of stress urinary incontinence that can be caused by genetics, lack of specific exercises, depression, and trauma.
When these muscles get weak from too much sitting and lack of the right kinds of exercises the risk of organ prolapse increases. Before exercising it is a good habit to check in with your core support and make sure you are moving with this area strong.
I make all my clients try a few simple exercises every class they attend. These exercises are easy to learn and make your ab workout much more effective. Check out the new course designed to get you to move from the deep core support you have been missing.
You over-stretch
It’s tempting to overdo it and stretch the hip ligaments going for fancy flexibility. When you lose proper alignment to go for the flexibility trophy, you stretch out joints and ligaments that are designed to hold your bones together.
Muscles have stretch reflexes and elasticity. Ligaments do not. Don't mess them up by forcing the splits or jumping the day after childbirth.
I’ve made the over-stretching mistake as a young dancer and spent years retraining for stability and more balanced flexibility. Adding stability to mobility helped relieve my chronic pain! Want to learn how I did it? Join the Radiant Program.
You’ve had surgery
Any kind of abdominal surgery can leave your core weak and your pelvic floor vulnerable to prolapse. If you want your organs to stay put, take the doctor's precautions seriously.
People tell all these macho stories about stitching up their own wound and then getting right back into training and taking the podium.
Reality check: some kinds of injuries are more serious than others. Your body needs a lot of time to heal and pounding on weak areas can create more damage.
I know it’s not as cool to brag about how you’re taking time to heal when others are taking their crutches to aerobics class. But if you modify your activities until you heal you’ll rebuild core strength on a deeper level.
The reason I preach the boring route of healing is because I was the person so desperate to work out that I developed chronic injury by trying to skip over the healing phase.
I had intestine surgery and couldn’t lift weights for a year since the surgery was so invasive. A weak core led me to some hip imbalances and injuries since I returned to full activity a little too soon. Your body will heal faster if you start from the foundation.
Need me to show you how to get that internal power? Sign up for the Radiant Program!
fit mommy syndrome
I remember going to a high impact aerobics class and watched a pregnant woman participating full force. She had been super fit before her pregnancy and during, so I wasn’t worried about her then.
But then she had her baby and within just 2 days she was back to full-impact aerobics with high kicks and plyometric jumps and everything!
I don’t care how fit you are, you’ve got to give those muscles and ligaments time to snap back into place before you go jumping around. That means no trampolines yet!
There are plenty of activities you can do. Strength training will be one of the best and will get you back in shape more effectively.
The reason why fit mommies need to watch it is that their bodies are still circulating hormones that soften the pelvic ligaments. Wait for those hormones to leave your system and do repairing exercises for your undercarriage. There’s no gold medal for incontinence.
You hold your breath and push your abdomen outward
When lifting something heavy you want to brace the pelvic floor and lower abs by pulling in and up before you lift the weight.
This will stabilize the spine, protecting your back and organizing your core strength to radiate outward into your working limbs.
I see so many people lifting heavy and straining the core in the opposite direction.
Put down the weight and find one you can lift while having the core technique and breathing patterns working for you.
This also applies when you’re in the bathroom. Be sure not to exhale and push your pelvic floor downward to empty your bladder or bowels quickly. This can lead to organ prolapse over time.
Instead, relax the pelvic floor and let gravity do most of the action. Gentle inward contraction of the lower abs will assist. And if you need more effort than that, you probably just need more fiber.
Don’t stress the pelvic floor so much if you want to keep everything in place.
If your workout doesn't train the pelvic floor as well as the rest of the body, you can join my program. Get workouts, LIVE discussions, and specific techniques and corrections to help you feel healthy inside and out!